


Enough

by inklingdeco



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: M/M, hey did you guys like the angsty stuff in my last MML fic?, no?, well guess what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 08:07:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12744372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inklingdeco/pseuds/inklingdeco
Summary: You wouldn't understand their likes and dislikes and they wouldn't understand yours. Even if you spent years studying the timeline the object of your affection lived in, how could they ever, ever relate to your life and experiences? Your basis of life, as a time traveler, was the fellow time travelers you interacted with, and maybe what little of your life you had before joining up. Your existence was snippets of history you observed but never belonged to. Your home was whatever you were living in at the time, liable to change at any moment. You saw the play the world put on but only had a walk-on role. You observed the world but never joined in. (A Vinnie/male OC fic!)





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkwingSnark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkwingSnark/gifts).



> Hello everyone!  
> I wanted to write something for my MML OC (which, I missed OC week, I know! Aah!) named Arin, and I hope people like him. Really, any OC fic is so much for the indulgence of the person writing it, it's a miracle when other people think it's okay!
> 
> This comes at the encouragement of darkwingsnark, who told me to write snippets of this Arin's life with Vinnie. They had suggested a first meeting fic, but this was one of the first ideas I ever had about about Arin and Vinnie's dynamic would be like, so since it was the most developed, I went with this first! If anyone would ever like to see their meet cute, I'll definitely try to write it.
> 
> Thank you Snark for your help and I hope everyone enjoys!

It wasn't normally done, and there were good reasons for it.

Time travelers didn't date non-time travelers, presentists, "normies," whatever your particular Bureau member chose to call them; people who couldn't time travel didn't date people who could.

Well, they could, nothing was stopping them. There wasn't technically any rules against it in the Bureau, as long as you didn't enact any big changes to the timestream by dating that person, but it was strongly advised against. It just didn't work out. A presentist could never relate to a time traveler, what could the relationship possibly be founded on?  
You wouldn't understand their likes and dislikes and they wouldn't understand yours. Even if you spent years studying the timeline the object of your affection lived in, how could they ever, ever relate to your life and experiences? Your basis of life, as a time traveler, was the fellow time travelers you interacted with, and maybe what little of your life you had before joining up. Your existence was snippets of history you observed but never belonged to. Your home was whatever you were living in at the time, liable to change at any moment. You saw the play the world put on but only had a walk-on role. You observed the world but never joined in. 

No normie ever related to that. No normie was ever really okay with you being gone for weeks on end- because sure, for you, you saw them yesterday, but you're not operating on the central finite timeline, you're on your own time. You come home and wonder why they're crying and don't understand why they're so lonely when for you, your eyes saw them less than 24 hours ago. It leads to fighting, it leads to miscommunication, it leads to anger before it leads to talking about problems and what it leaves behind in its wake is two people who realize too late they never really knew each other at all. 

It was wise, if you were going to date, to date other time travelers. Vinnie never thought of himself as wise.

Cavendish had used a lot of big words to describe it. "Reckless" was one, "preposterous" was another, Vinnie had to stop him when he got to "foolhardy" and ask Cavendish where he bought his thesauruses from. It was a *bad idea* is what he meant, and, yeah, it was. 

It was a terrible idea, but no exciting idea was ever good. He was just this guy, they barely knew anything about each other, but he was cute and Vinnie liked his style and that was all that mattered.  
Cavendish argued that's EVERYTHING that mattered, but in truth he wasn't a stranger. They had spoken multiple times at the peanut cart the guy ran (which Balthazar said wasn't a big deal if he bought snacks from, peanuts weren't the ones going extinct after all,) so he knew more than Cavendish was assuming.

His name was Arin Fujioka, he was 28 years old. Dakota learned this after calling him "kid" twice in their first meeting, which made Arin put his hands on his hips (which was really cute, in Dakota's totally unbiased opinion) and say he wasn't a kid, thanks, just how old are YOU anyway?  
Vinnie had to pull out his biological clock, which was a real thing and not just a punchline, and after hitting a button or two replied with probably one of the better sentences he's ever constructed,

"Uuuh...Wow, 31, I'm doing better than I thought- yeah, 31," and put the watch back in his pocket. Arin had blinked incredulously, only getting out,

"Did you...did you forget?" 

Vinnie had shrugged, said, "It happens," and walked away with one snack gained and a generous tip lost. He didn't look back for fear of turning Arin into a pillar of salt. 

They talked more. Arin would say something like oh, I saw you at such and such a place the other day, you looked like you were running or something, and Vinnie would have to think about if that had happened yet for him. Sometimes it happened out of order, Arin was experiencing Vinnie on the central finite time line. Vinnie would probably say something about how he got around. 

He asked questions. He liked being connected to someone. He let Arin talk and deflected questions about himself because man, what a novelty, to know someone. What a thrill to have a connection to the real world, what a gift to know a bit about what life is like for people unlike him and the hundreds of other people who had committed their life to not having one. Arin wanted to be a singer. He lived in an apartment 4 blocks away and that stool he was sitting on was from his own home, he dragged it to work every morning because Shelman's Peanuts Corporation had neglected to remember he was a human being who couldn't stand up for 8 hours at a time. He designed the tattoo that took up his forearm and no, it didn't hurt when he got his ears pierced and yes, he thought Vinnie would look good with a diamond earring.  
Arin would lean over the counter, elbows on the metal top and chin in his hands and watching Vinnie like he was the most interesting man in the world, despite knowing so little about him. Vinnie listened to Cavendish's advice that it should stay that way. He chose to ignore that advice. 

It wasn't until later that the doubt crept in, when the reality of the situation he had been warned about finally reared its ugly head. There were the initial "oh god we're dating for the first time and this is awkward and weird" feelings and insecurities that everyone had; Vinnie thought Arin was out of his league, he thought he didn't have enough money to take him nice places like he deserved, he realized very, very quickly he wasn't as smooth a talker as he had always thought- but Arin made him do something he had never, ever done before. Arin made him talk about it. 

About everything, mostly his feelings, Arin pried everything out of him. Not forcefully, he never made Vinnie do anything he really didn't want to, but Vinnie had never been asked questions like the ones Arin asked him before. "Is this okay with you," "What do YOU want to do," "Does this upset you," and "How did that make you feel?"

How did that make you feel- since when did that matter? You did what you had to, you gotta make other people happy, what're you gonna do? What did it matter what HIS feelings were in the situation?  
It never occurred to him until Arin that it wasn't normal. He would brush it off too often, I'm fine, how are you, no really, nothing's bothering me, that Arin would sit down with him, and ask him to honestly and truly talk to him. 

It made Arin feel like Vinnie didn't actually like him. They had only been seeing each other for a little over a month, they didn't even use the term "boyfriend" yet, but they did get to hold hands in public and that part was nice. (Okay, it was better than nice, it was really, REALLY nice, like how did it feel so natural to have someone's hand in yours?) but Arin told him they couldn't get through this if they didn't communicate. On top of that, Arin wanted to know how he was feeling. He wanted to know what was going through Vinnie's head. He wanted to help if he could.

Vinnie would fully admit he had messed up ideas on give-and-take. He gave a lot and never took. Affection, be it friendship or a relationship, consisted of him giving everything he had, and why should he expect anything in return? That was what friendship was, you gave yourself to that person. You sacrificed your happiness to see someone smile, or to live another day, their ignorance was your bliss. Arin wasn't supposed to have to hear the sad stuff, that was Vinnie's job, not his. 

The fact that Dakota didn't even realize there was a problem was a big deal when he realized there was. He had never cried in front of anyone before, now he had, and it wasn't even like he controlled it, it just happened, like he blinked and suddenly a dam had opened up in his mind and there it all went. Everything was there for Arin to see, which he wasn't supposed to, that Vinnie's job to hold onto all this so other people didn't have to. Every word that came out Dakota immediately wished he could take back. And it took a long time, nothing came easy, but it was little gestures from Arin over time and Vinnie finally allowing himself to say, "You know what, no, I'm not actually okay today. I'm kinda upset." And they'd move on from there. At was as easy as that, except it wasn't, but it was. 

It had to have been hard on Arin. The time travel he said didn't bother him, in fact he had said he thought it was really, really cool that he was "with" a time traveller (he didn't say dating, like "boyfriend" it was a word the two kept dancing around, as if Arin could sense the wall Vinnie had been told was there.) What wasn't fair, however, was that Arin and Dakota started being "with" each other at a time when Dakota didn't have many missions lined up. 

But later, it became the norm for Arin to not see Vinnie for 2 weeks at a time. Vinnie knew he was allowed at the apartment at any time, and the first few times he'd come in, he'd realize...it was 2 am, Arin was asleep. He didn't wait up. Vinnie swore he was just gone for an hour- no, his BODY had been gone an hour, for Arin he had been gone all night. Or he'd come over and Arin would hug him much, much harder than Vinnie expected, and he'd look at Arin's phone and realize it had actually been 10 days since they had seen each other last. Vinnie could only hug him back and apologize. 

And Arin would tell him not to apologize, he didn't mind, he didn't mind, but Dakota couldn't believe him. 

It had been one night in particular when Dakota had portaled himself in. The apartment was dark, the TV wasn't warm. Looking down at his own phone revealed nothing, as to it it was still 2 pm on the day he left, but how much things in the apartment looked different (jackets changing positions, the flowers Vinnie had bought Arin "yesterday" wilting in their vase) let Vinnie know it had been awhile.

The door to Arin's room open, because it was always, always open for him, Vinnie crept over and picked up Arin's charging phone on his nightstand. 3:11 AM, November 16, 2017. Three weeks since they had last seen each other. 

The sound of his phone clicking off made Arin inhale slowly, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and lifting his head up. Vinnie didn't even take off his shoes, didn't ask permission, just crawled on top of Arin's blankets and held him from behind, repeating apologies into the back of his neck. Dakota squeezed Arin around the chest like he was praying that this would go away. 

Arin turned to look over his shoulder, groggily trying to reply with, "Vin, hey, it's-"

"You don't deserve this," came his reply. Even as his eyes adjusted to the light, all Arin could see was a bit of light reflecting off Dakota's curls, and felt the cool metal of his sunglasses pressing into the nape of his neck. It was so uncharacteristic of Vinnie, he didn't punctuate the sentence with "man," didn't try to play it off like a joke, it was a statement. It was a cold, hard fact to Vinnie- Arin didn't deserve this.

Arin tried to turn around, but could only get his arm up and under his own head. 

"I've told you, i-it's okay-"

"It's not, this isn't...You don't, you don't deserve this. I'm terrible for keeping you in this."

Arin swung himself around, forcing Dakota's vice-like grip to loosen to allow the two to lay face-to-face. Arin held the sides of Vinnie's face, his hands warm against Vinnie who was still cold from being outside. 

"This is enough for me. You aren't obligated to do anything."

"But isn't that, like, what a relationship is? I-I'm not fulfilling my end of the bargain here, Arin, dating is like-" he looked around, partially shocking himself that he did, in fact, finally say "dating" and partially because Arin's coolness MUST have been a lie, "-you're...you've giving too much. You're not being selfish enough, be more selfish! Tell me not to leave again, tell me I should be around more, please."

Arin blinked then looked at Vinnie sternly, pulling his sunglasses off his face and setting them aside. He put his hands to the side of Vinnie's face again, feeling Vinnie's jaw work under his palms.

"Vin, look at me. Vin, look. At. Me."

He met Vinnie's eyes, the ones he had tried to hide for so long under the sunglasses, the eyes Vinnie had said were "kinda freaky" for being two different colors, the eyes that Arin adored beyond measure and always conjured up images of open church doors in his mind. 

"I'm happy with the way things are. I like this. Vinnie-"

"No, it's, none of this is-"

"Vinnie. You are enough for me."

Vinnie blinked at him, wary that a dam in his brain was liable to break if he couldn't keep plugging up the holes. What did...what did that mean? He knew what it MEANT, but he didn't...get what it meant. 

Nothing he did was enough. Everything he did was filling a cup with a hole in the bottom; if you poured enough water in it he could present to the world that it was a full glass, but he knew if he stopped it would be made empty. Everything he did was fulling the cup, damage control day in and day out, his job was to make that cup look as full as he could, even if it meant he was the only one filling the glass for, well, however long it took. And now Arin was telling him... 

He was telling him the glass didn't need to be filled at all? Arin would be happy with a half-empty glass? 

"Did you hear me?" Arin said again, "Vinnie, you're enough for me. You, alone, are enough. You don't have to impress me, you have no obligations to fulfill. I-I just want you to be you, and if I get to be a weird piece of furniture in your life, I'm so happy." 

Vinnie always liked how Arin talked like a manager. He'd do well in his music career, he'd tell the people what he wanted and wouldn't let anyone tell him otherwise. He'd do so, so well. 

"You're not furniture," Dakota said, taking Arin's hands off his face and holding them both in his own, "You're not watching from the sidelines. I know it feels that way, and I am so, so sorry that it does, but you are..." he groaned and pushed his hair back with one hand, Arin patiently waiting as he organized his thoughts, "You're always there. Actively, not passively, you're in my head all the time-"

"'All the time' is a lot for you," Arin said with a smirk.

Vinnie smiled back, "It's more than most people, yeah. You are way, way more than furniture in my weird life. You are in every single aspect of my life now. And, yeah, I...Kinda feel like I'm supposed to have this boyfriend checklist I'm checkin' off, and I'm missing so many of the marks."

"Well, there's no checklist, if there is, there's only one box. And all it would say is 'Be Vinnie.' You're not missing any marks, you, Vinnie, are enough. I like it when we can hang out, even if it's kinda rare now. It's nice seeing you every time." Arin leaned foreward and kissed Dakota on the forehead. "Also, you totally said 'boyfriend' just now. So it's official aaaand you can't let me go." He smiled and handed Vinnie back his sunglasses, sitting up in bed. 

Vinnie sat up with him, putting his sunglasses back on (despite all the lights being out) and watching his boyfriend- yes, boyfriend, that's my boyfriend, the person in front of me is my boyfriend- stretch his arms and shoulders. 

"When's the next time you have to go?" Arin asked.

"Uuuh," Dakota said, pulling out his phone-like time travel device and pressing through a few menus, "Apparently I have a briefing with Cav and Mr. Block at 10 am today. So...7 hours," he replied, a little sheepish.

Arin stood up and put his hands on his hips (which was still, in Dakota's totally unbiased opinion, adorable as hell,) saying with a smile, "We'll have to have a date now then, before you go. 3 am pancakes sound good?" 

Dakota stood up and held Arin around the waist, and smiling down at him said, "That's more than good enough for me," and kissed him on the forehead. 

Cavendish would have to later recount that yes, dating outside the Buraeu is a wickedly bad idea. It's reckless, unethical, careless, foolhardy, all those great words and more, and did require Dakota and Arin to share their life in pieces. It meant Arin waking up at odd hours of the night so he could spend more time with his boyfriend. It meant their time spent together was cobbled together with dates when they could manage them, but mostly small, intimate moments of lives shared when they just so happened to collide into each other. 

It was unremarkable, cobbled, and clumsy- but Cavendish had to concede, if anyone at the Buerau could make this work, it could only be Vinnie Dakota.


End file.
